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“Best Indian Pizza” by the name of UTTAPAM

Here is another South Indian dish which is favoured by nearly everyone. The name is Uttapam or Oothappam (or even Indian Pizza, by some!)

What is it, you might as well ask. In simple terms it is like a thick pancake with the ingredients cooked in a batter.

Our top supermarkets now offer a small variety of quite excellent ready wet mixes, which our friends in the UK and in the USA were able to buy for some time.

I felt adventures this morning and decided to make the Uttapam for this post together, since in my 10 years of living here I never had the nerve of making them in my own kitchen, believing them to be very difficult to prepare. But how wrong I was!!

So, I happily prepared Uttapam. Since the wet-mix does not come with any instruction whatsoever, I did a trial run first and found out, that I had to make just some slight adjustments to the batter. So here now the measurements I used in the 3 different Uttapam’s you see in the pictures.

1. Empty all the wet-mix into a bowl.

2. Take a smaller bowl and measure out 5 Tbsp of the batter

and 2 Tbsp of lukewarm water. Mix well.

3. Heat a smallish (frying) pan and pour this mixture into the pan; and like you do with an Italian Pizza, spread the various toppings immediately over the batter.

4. Cook this on medium heat for app. 3-5 minutes and then cover with a large lid and continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Do not flip over.

5. Your Uttapam should be ready, serve and eat whilst still warm.

So today I give you 3 different ‘recipes’ for your Uttapam – but, remember, the sky is the limit, experiment with all kind of delicious toppings until you find the ones which will become your household favourites.

The first choice:

In a bowl mix some minced ginger

1 small onion, chopped (you want the crunch on the Uttapam)

1 Tbsp Curry Leaves (cut small) or coriander leaves

2 green chillies, cut slanted

Salt, to taste

The second one is the all-round favourite:

1 small onion, chopped

½ green capsicum (or yellow or red)

Some button mushrooms, wiped with a dry paper towel and sliced

1 tomato, peeled, deseeded and sliced

1 boiled, peeled and sliced beetroot

2 green chillies, cut slanted

Salt, to taste

The third is one of the signature Uttapam of a company just off MG Road, where they sell these, and other most delicious Dosa’s etc., to cinema goers on their way home at night.

Make Uttapam exactly like the first one but carefully open an egg and set it on top of the batter. Unfortunately most eggs here have a very thin shell – we ‘wasted’ a few eggs in order to get a beautiful yolk, but had to conceit defeat in the end.

Uttapam’s is often eaten with sambar or chutney – but we prefer them just like they come out of the pan.